Justine's Honors Blog

Our last discussion was a good discussion. That topic is something that provokes strong opinions and sometimes strong feelings. I have given this topic thought before. In high school I took a communications class and I did a debate over boarder control and illegal immigrants. I was on the side of stronger boarder control. I based my argument not on the fact that immigrants are coming to America for jobs and to better their life but on the information I found about drugs and violence and how that needs to stop. I don’t believe that either side is right or wrong when it comes to this issue because it is something that is difficult to deal with. However, I would hope that it could help return jobs to the citizens. I think that the strongest argument is that there is no right way to solve the issue with illegal immigrants but just like anything you have to start someone before you can progress. As for the video, I had already heard of this new law so no new feelings came to me after watching it. When the sheriff talked about how this new law is shifting the attention from more important issues I disagreed with him. Like any new law it just adds one more responsibility for law enforcers. He wouldn’t have to hold the stops to check for license and registration, instead why not just incorporate checking for citizenship in a regular stop. If a person doesn’t have their license or registration when pulled over then proceed with checking for citizenship during the stop.

The article was about the DSM and how it has and should be modified. There are issues with Gender Identity Disorder. This disorder is controversial because some people think it is one of the ways people are trying to put homosexuality back in the DSM as a mental disorder. The Youtube videos were about Chaz Bono, Cher’s son, who is a transgender. One of the videos is a performance of him on Dancing With The Stars dancing to Phantom of the Opera, and the other is an interview with him.

The article about the DSM made me think a lot about how things are viewed as mental disorders. When the article was talking about transgender it made me think if they take that out of the DSM shouldn’t body dismorphic disorder no longer be considered a mental disorder? Also, I never thought about how people may translate gender identity disorder into trying to prevent or treat homosexuality. I definitely think that homosexuality needs to stay out of the DSM but I never really connected treating GID with trying to treat gays and lesbians.

This reading was about how employers are bias on what kind of employee they hire. Most of this article talked about how “beautiful” people would be more likely to be hired for jobs that require interaction. This article also talked about how there are specific personality traits and personality tests that are given to determine what kind of employee to choose.

The whole hiring “beautiful” people for certain jobs didn’t really surpirse me. I feel like that is a common thing. One of my friends recently got hired at a clothing store and whenshe went into an interview they didn’t really care much about her work ethic, they just cared about how much she cared about their clothes and how good she looked in their clothes. Another one of my friends had to fill out a personality test for a job application. It was very easy to tell what answers were the “correct” answer. I feel like anytime a test would be required for a job most will not be honest about how they would react in a situation.

Identity is something that defines someone. What I think defines me would definitely be my personality. Most of the time I am outgoing and love to have fun, other times I just like to be by myself and have “me” time. These two different traits of my personality come together all the time. This week was mid-terms so I usually spent about half my day by myself studying then I would want to have fun and hang out with friends. That is also when they change. My identity would change depending on the situation that I am, for example, test week.

Oogy’s beauty definitely came from his success story. He has been through really hard times that most dogs wouldn’t survive, but he did, and he found a family and ultimately was loved which makes him and his story very beautiful.

Homer’s story has two different kinds of beauty. As the author was describing her first encounter with Homer I couldn’t help but “awwh” because she was describing a cute little kitten. Homer’s story, like Oogy’s is also beautiful. Both of these animals have the beauty of finding love. They were both “outcasts” having something physically wrong with them but in the end they found a family that loves them for who they are!

I think that the ugly/abused dogs are the ones that are more likely to get adopted because of the sympathy card. People see the commercials of these poor innocent animals that have gotten abused or neglected and can’t help but feel sorry for them! I think that the looks of the animal, how beautiful it is, doesn’t really matter when it comes to this. People won’t care if the animal is “beautiful” because they know what the animal has been through.

I’m not sure exactly why black coated animals would be harder to get adopted because I personally think they are cute! I think that black animals may have a harder time getting placed in homes because black is such a dark color that isn’t usually related back to happy and playful things. Also, the superstition about black cats could play a role.

My opinions about beauty haven’t really changed over the past weeks. I have only learned more about other thoughts and opinions on it. The thing I liked the most was the natural beauty! I think that anything could be considered beautiful, it just depends who is looking at what.
The obvious connection between the three readings is that they are all about beauty! All these reading sparked thoughts and ideas about the perception of beauty, artificial and natural. Both of these readings also brought controversy to a discussion. The writers of the articles we read, especially the religious article, seemed to have extreme views about beauty and what is beautiful.
I am ready to move to a new topic because I think we talked about beauty in general to death! I liked talking about the article that brought up “cali” and I also liked the natural beauty even though I didn’t really like the article.
I don’t think beauty was the ONLY thing the readings could have been addressing. I think that there were many underlying topics that could have been interchanged. For example, the last reading we read came from such a strict and strongly opinioned writer that the attitude he had could have been the main topic.

This article gave a different perspective on beauty than any of the others. The article talks about how beauty was perceived as things that couldn’t be explained like stars, water, wind, etc. These things that people would call beautiful were considered Gods.
I thought this article was interesting. It definitely gave a different perspective on beauty from the past articles we have read. To me, this article reminded us about the beauty all around us like the stars, fire, and wind mentioned in the reading.

The video about evolution of beauty and the website of re-touched photos showe the reality of the kind of “beauty” society sees in the media. The article The Beguiling Truth About Beauty elaborates a little more about the beauty we see in the public and the beauty we see advertised. An example is given about a short thicker women who works with models. She feels perfectly fine about her looks when she isn’t at work. As soon as she is in the room with all the models she instantly starts to feel less attractive and fat. She likes to call her work enviornment a “fake world.”

The article that stuck out the most to me was The Truth About Beauty and the youtube video called Evolution of Beauty. Many of the situations in The Truth About Beauty delt with self confidence and the way others make you feel. The study done when a room full of people fully dressed doing math problems was compared to the scores of people in bathing suits doing math problems didn’t really surpise me much. Body image is always in the back of everyone’s mind. I think that people are always asking themselves if this outfit looks good, does it highlight a tiny waist or lean arms/legs? This relates back the the hot or not concept that is programmed into everyone’s brain.
The Evolultion of Beauty video was shocking. A regular person was transformed into someone completely different. After hair, make-up, and the lighting was set, the face was digitally transformed into what the producers wanted her to look like. If anything, I think this should reassure people that they don’t need to be comparing themselves to pictures of “beautiful” people in magizenes, movies, billboards, etc.

Summary-This article/story was about beauty and how the opinions people have about how it is used and perceived in society. The article talks about this new procedure called “calli.” This changes the way people see the features one has. Calli doesn’t allow people to judge based on looks, to see beauty you have to look deeper and find the beauty in a smile, personality, etc.

The article goes back and forth between arguments, people for the initiation of Calli at Pembleton College and people against it. Students, professors, scientists, news broadcasters, and a girl Tamera Lyons all put their say in on what they think about Calli.

Tamera Lyons grew up with Calli and once she turned 18 she had it shut off. She was curious to see what the world was like once she could see a different kind of beauty. Once Tamera had Calli shut off she was against the initiation. Tamera believed that it isn’t bad to acknowledge physical beauty.

After voting it was decided that Calli would not be initiated. There was some speculation with how the anti-calli gained so many votes last minute. Eventually there is hope to have “spex” that gives the effect of Calli when desired by a person.

Evaluation/Analysis-
I thought this article was very interesting. It was very easy for me to get into all the different opinions people had about Calli. Throughout reading I changed my mind a few times since the arguments were very convincing, but I am on the anti-calli side in the end.

To me, the idea of calli just doesn’t seem fun! As a girl, I LOVE to go shopping, get my hair done, buy make-up, etc. I believe that getting dressed up for an event or taking a little extra time to get ready in the morning can give a person a little extra confidence. I think having pride in what you look like is important in life. The people for calli make a good point that what you get in life shouldn’t be based on looks but in a way it should. Say you have an important job as head of a big company; you are expected to look “put together” and I like that.

Another thing I though was interesting in this article is when they talked about relationships. Tamera and Garret dated and when Tamera got off calli people told her Garret wasn’t cute or that he wasn’t in her league. People would argue that without calli Tamera would have never been with Garret but I disagree. I have had two major relationships in my life and neither of my boyfriends would be considered the hottest guy on Earth. I think no matter what you look like there will be that one person you are meant to be with that will fall in love with you physically and emotionally. Even though most relationships are based on attraction, they do turn into more than that if you are compatible.

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